How to Organize Your Android Files and Downloads With Redirect

If you’re anything like me, you probably use your Android phone or tablet as a mini computing device more and more. This includes downloading all sorts of files off the Internet and storing them on your device, without rhyme or reason. After a while, it just becomes a mess, you have no idea what you downloaded or where it is, and finding specific files is a major pain. Well, while struggling with this problem, I stumbled across today’s handy little app to fix this issue for me. Struggling with this yourself? Well, read ahead to find out more about it!

The app we will be using to fix this issue is called Redirect File Organizer, and it is available for free in the Play Store. A paid version is also available with a few extra features, including theme support and widgets. For basic operation, the free version works just fine, however if you’d like to support the developer or take advantage of the widgets in your homescreen, the Pro version is fairly cheap! So, just download the app and once it’s installed, open it and you’ll see a little tutorial explaining how the app works and what it’s all about. You can skip it outright, but I’d advise you to stick around, as it’s not too long and explains things fairly well. Once you’re done with the tutorial, we can finally get to action and start organizing our files!

The app works by allowing you to set filters on your device and automatically sending files or folders that match to a specific locations. For example, let’s imagine that you frequently download .gif files, and have a hefty collection of them scattered around your phone. What this app allows you to do is to move them all to a specific location (for example, a folder named “GIFs”), thus always in the same location and organized as you wish. This is what the app calls “Redirects”. So, let’s create one:

The app comes with a few standard “simple” Redirects already, for example for “Documents” or “Movies and Videos”. Let’s use one of these for now. Tap “New Simple Redirect” and select “Movies and Videos” in the top toggle:

Next, just tap the grey rectangle and select where you’d like to move the files to. Remember that you can also create a brand new folder in case you don’t have one already. Once you make your selection, just choose “Create Simple Redirect” at the bottom, and you’ll be taken to the “Redirects” screen, which shows all your current active Redirects:

And, believe it or not, that’s about it! You can now run that Redirect on command, or set a schedule for the app to run the Redirect automatically in the background as you go about your daily life, which we will set later. For now, tap the Redirect and run it to test it out. You should see the app detailing the operations done in the notification bar.

Once it’s done, if you’re not happy, no problem! The app keeps track of all operations, and easily allows you to undo Redirects:

As I mentioned, the app also allows you to create your own Redirects. This means that you can select your own file formats to filter against, whitelist or blacklist folders, choose specific file names, and much more. To create a custom Redirect, just tap “New Custom Redirect” and follow the instructions:

As you can see, the app is also extremely good looking, with an interface inspired somewhat by the new Cards UI that Google has been so fond of lately, including a slide out navigation menu:

Tapping the Settings takes you to some useful options, such as an option to enable SD card support and an option to set how often the background service should run current Redirects automatically, or if they should run at all:

And that’s about it for this app! Very simple to use, filled with powerful and customizable features, free, and good-looking to boot. You couldn’t ask for more! The ability to automatically run Redirects in the background while not using the app and native SD card support also make this app a must-have for automatically organizing your phone’s memory and easily keeping your downloads in check. Any doubts or issues with the app? Don’t hesitate to ask us in the comment section below!